Jailed Iranian journalist Goudarzi receives NPC award
The National Press Club has announced the recipients of the 2010 John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award, which is given each year to individuals who have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government. This year, the international recipient is Iranian blogger Kouhyar Goudarzi, who is being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison–notorious…
Analysing Tunisia’s Net censorship
Obviously all of these assumptions are mere speculations. This is an effort on our part to try to better understand one of the most secretive system of repression in Tunisia and to help demystify its processes. And obviously, we invite anyone with further information to make them public, and a fortiori, it may be that…
Why governments don’t need RIM to crack the BlackBerry
The United Arab Emirates’ Telecommunications Regulation Authority (TRA) announced on Sunday that it would be suspending BlackBerry “messenger, e-mail and Web-browsing services” in the country from October 11, until these “applications were in full compliance with UAE regulations.” Given the popularity of the BlackBerry platform in the country (an estimated 500,000 users from a population of 4.5 million) one…
Three hikers in Iran, one year on
On July 30, three American hikers in Iran will have endured an entire year in custody, held without charge or a modicum of due process. This is obviously a terrible injustice, so much so that it surprises me when I mention their situation to skeptical friends or colleagues who believe that the three were foolish to hike…
U.S. Senate passes ‘libel tourism’ bill
This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill shielding journalists and publishers from “libel tourism.” The vote on Monday slipped past the Washington press corps largely unnoticed. Maybe it was the title that strove chunkily for a memorable acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act. Journalists and…
Using https to secure the Web for journalism
From today, you now have an alternative web address to visit the CPJ website. As well as our usual http://cpj.org/ address, you can visit our site securely at https://cpj.org/. We’ve turned on this feature to help protect our readers who are at risk of surveillance and censorship, and as part of a wider advocacy mission…
Boukadous’ wife describes bribe attempt before arrest
Tunisian police arrested Fahem Boukadous, a widely respected critical journalist, on July 15. Before his arrest, Boukadous wrote an open letter from the hospital, where he was being treated for acute asthma. On the evening he was taken to Gafsa prison, his wife, Afaf Bennacer, wrote an article about what happened that has been circulated on multiple…
Morocco declares itself ‘democratic’ while restricting media
While high-ranking Arab officials are not held accountable for misinforming or misleading the public, critical journalists in their respective countries are increasingly dragged into courts and handed harsh jail sentences following unfair trials for “spreading false news.”
In Yemen, press freedom worst in 20 years
One opinion was relayed to me repeatedly by numerous journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders during the week I just spent in Yemen: The crackdown against independent and opposition media in the country has not been this concerted at any time since the unification of the southern and northern halves of the country in 1990.